In the aftermath of NBC sportcaster Bob Costas’s half-baked half-time gun control rant, Dan and I wondered when the other shoe would drop. How long before some pro athlete (out of hundreds) did something stupid with a firearm, thus emboldening those who agree with Costas that America’s gun laws needs to be more “comprehensive”? By the same token, Dan and I have been keeping our eyes out for another pro athlete defensive gun use. First out of the gate: a case of vehicular manslaughter [via cnn.com]
Josh Brent, a tackle for the Dallas Cowboys, was arrested Saturday on suspicion of intoxication manslaughter after flipping his car in Irving, Texas, in an accident that left fellow Cowboys player Jerry Brown [above] dead, police said.
The People of the Gun have seized on this tragic tale. Their claim: using Costas’ anti-gun logic, the sportscaster and his ilk should be calling for car control. Not the ability to control a car, obviously. Pro ballers’ “easy access” to automobiles.
As the Talking Heads said, stop making sense. Just thinking out loud here . . .
There were some 32k automotive-related fatalities in the U.S. last year. In 2009, there were just over 9k firearms-related homicides. The same source reports 17k firearms-related suicides in 2005. So let’s call it a wash. Car deaths = gun deaths.
Costas and his ilk want to restrict access to purchasing guns. If the public’s safety is the determinative factor—setting aside that whole Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms thing—shouldn’t we pass laws restricting car sales?
Should car purchasers be subject to a background check? Should criminals and anyone with an accident record be prohibited from purchasing cars?
For some people, guns are scary. And of story. Little do they know that America’s story started with guns.
And if they do, they don’t realize that the principles upon which the United States were founded are just as relevant today as they were at the beginning. Like . . . the right to self-defense. And personal (as opposed to collective) responsibility.
A concept that Josh Brent is about to confront. As well he should.
It will be interesting to see/hear if Costas says anything at all about tbis.
I posted on profootballtalk.com that I was awaiting Bob Costas’s essay on SNF about the need for car control. They removed my post, twice. BTW, profootballtalk.com is an NBC property. Shock, NOT!!!!!!!!
Ban CARS!! Ban BEER, errr no wait a minute.
Easy , sir.
Yes ban alcohol and cars, then maybe all you who are queer for democracy will wake the f..ck up.
We should just ban everything that has the potential to hurt us.
I wish you people would learn more about the law in the great State of Texas. Not only pointing a gun, but actual lethal force is sanctioned to prevent a felony such as theft. Imminent threat to life or limb is not necessary.
Yeah, Texas law is pretty bizarre on use of force. I remember in law school we studied a cae from Tesxas where a dude shoot a repo man who was repossessing a truck from teh front yard. As I remember the result, the court held that the shooter was justified to use lethal foce to protect his property.
You call it bizarre? Don’t come here. We call it normal.
Can I move to you when you get better suppressor laws?
What’s wrong with Texas’ suppressor laws? We can own them, we can use them, we can hunt with them…
Now if you said open carry I would understand. But is there some part of Texas law I’m missing when it comes to cans?
No, not cars or guns or alcohol. Let’s ban the interwebz. If we didn’t hear about all this stuff we wouldn’t be upset, would we? Besides, if Al Gore invented it, it must be bad for us.
It is a sad irony that an incident like this one followed so soon after the one with Belcher. The message that we have to keep reminding everyone about is that good people shouldn’t have their freedoms curtailed because a few knuckleheads screw up.
RIP.
Using the gun-grabbing ranters logic and principles, this case demonstrates the need to drastically limit and highly regulate if not have an all-out ban on civilian owned vehicles and access to alcohol beverages. Perhaps it is time to have a national common-sense discussion on vehicles and alcohol. For our children it must be done!
We tried the booze thing in the 1920’s. Worked out about as well as the war on drugs. Came to our senses in 1933.
RIP!!!
lol, in those nasty socialist countries where the gun crime rate is low they have much lower automobile deaths because the requirements for a license are very high, DUIs are punished more punitively, and they have efficient public transit.
SOUNDS TERRIBLE GUYS!!
lol
There is no correlation between the homicide rate and firearm laws. Switzerland has a homicide rate of 0.7 and among the most freedom as far as the right to keep and bear arms.
The UK?? Gun crime may be low, because they have few. But, the violent crime is much higher than the US. Criminals are gonna use what ever they can use to commit crimes.
Don’t give them any ideas. I’ve talked with people before and some would have no problem putting a breathalyzer-style device in cars that you’d have to blow into before you could start it up.
But, with apologies, there is such a thing as mandatory licensing before you can legally operate a motor vehicle. I believe every state also requires some sort of insurance for drivers, as well. Because of this, this type of comparison isn’t really all that valid, especially since the author probably would not back licensing of individuals that wish to buy a firearm.
I don’t like the automobile and gun comparisons but it depends on the state. Some places you can drive cars on your own property (farms and such usually) without licenses, some you can’t.
Oh for the laws about autos to apply to guns. Auto laws are far far less restrictive.
How many cars can you buy at one time? There are laws that restrict numbers purchased in a time period for guns.
Does your driver’s license allow you to drive in all states and territories of the U.S.? A concealed carry permit is often restricted to your own or very few states.
If your car is stolen and used in the commission of a crime are you in any trouble, even if you left your keys in the car? There are strong advocacies right now that want just such a a law on guns.
If you leave your key in your car and it’s used by someone to commit suicide (think sucking exhaust fumes) are you criminally liable? In states with trigger lock laws YOU ARE.
Are you required to have a license if you use your car only on your own property? Must you register it? NO, you do not have to, nor are any permits required. In gun registration states even if you keep it at home you are breaking the law if you don’t register.
Can you legally buy the most fearsome looking muscle car? And can you operate it? With or without a huge powerful engine in it?
You cannot own a true assault weaopn at all, and at one time you could not buy one of the fakes.. the ones that looked fearsome but whose operation was the same as a tame looking sporting rifle or shotgun.
In fact the fakes are the most piddling of defensive guns you could own. You’d be fare more lethally armed with a deer rifle common in hunting country. They are far and away more powerful and lethal.
Assault weapons are a joke, if they aren’t truly combat firearms in operation… and YOU, you dear, cannot OWN one of those and neither can I. But you can own a lethal car. No law against it. Heck I drive one with a brush guard on it. Now talk about lethal.
The whole anti gun rhetoric is based nearly exclusively on lies and deceptions. Nothing is as it seems from them.
They lie about deaths of children by guns… including but not at first admitting they are including 24 year old males in the “child,” category.. yes, can you imagine such an outrageous lie.. but they did it with “three children a day,” using government figures that included the most violence prone population .. young males, in the high teen and early adulthood ranges.
Real children rarely are victims of gun crime.
“The death rate for male drivers between the ages of 15 and 24 years old, meanwhile, is 48.2 per 100,000, according to numbers published in 2001 by the University of Maryland Medical Center. ”
And the gun death rate for the same age range?
“Table 6.4 provides the firearm death rates for people aged fifteen to twenty-four years, the age group most conspicuously affected by firearms deaths. The rate of 15.5 firearms–related deaths per 100,000 in 1970 in this age group rose to a high of 26.7 in 1995 before declining to 16.7 in 2001. Table 6.4 also shows very high rates of firearms deaths among elderly males. ”
This with the gun numbers at one for every citizen in this counry… about six per gun owning household.
Yet kids can’t drive before age fifteen, and they can’t own guns until they are 18 , and no handguns until they are 21, and some states they can never own a gun at any age, not out on the street they can’t.
The gun death rate is half the auto deaths for this age range. Tell you anything?
I doubt that Costas will say anything about this. It doesn’t fit his bias so no big deal to him. Never mind killing your teammate who was expecting a child because cars and booze don’t kill people but guns do.
Okay, if no one else has the courage to say it, I will:
BAN NFL PLAYERS!
It’s that damn simple. I don’t know what the stats are for deaths from hanging out with NFL players, but it’s got to be worse than for those of us NOT hanging out with NFL players.
You don’t hear about problems like this springing up all around Lacrosse players, and when you DO hear about something bad happening around Lacrosse players, it’s usually a damn lie.
“But here,” wrote Nobody Ever,” is what I believe. If Josh Brent didn’t possess a car, Jerry Brown would still be alive today.”
Hey Bob, call for an end to young men consuming alcohol, after all it leads to no good. We can count on Costas to provide weekly sermons on good versus bad aspects of life in these United States.
They knew the Chiefs player was unstable and prone to violence, did they have knowledge this guy was drinking a lot and likely to drive drunk? Yes, he had a DUI before.
Well if it wasn’t for cars he would be alive today, Lets not blame cars, guns or even alcohol. Put blame were its belongs on the drunk driver Josh Brent .
Speeding driver. The driver was speeding. Oh and he also drove out of his lane and hit the curb. These are facts. Beer didn’t do it.
We need more comprehensive laws to rein in dangerous speeding drivers. And it’s high time that police be given special powers to prevent speeder terrorism on our nations highways…
Dear Robert,
I notice that you have deleted my critical comment as well as another critical comment to your ORIGINAL article and (obviously considering our very reasonable objections) have redrafted the article.
I appreciate the “2. Edition” of this article.
Nonetheless, deleting (critical) comments while at the same time amending the original article also adulterates all other pre-existing comments since they were made in the context of the original article and not the amended one.
What I intent to say is that harum-scarum articles (I refer to the original one which now is amended) will only strengthen the anti-gunners and will portray us (the law abiding gun owners) in a negative light.
Editing is a like shooting: one has to think first and then press the trigger (or not).
Best regards – and keep going
PS: You may delete this comment
What Costas and the other grabbers do not realize is that the reason they have the right to spout their stupidity is hte same reason we have the right to own guns. The constitution. And without guns, neither of those rights would have been guaranteed, because we’d be under British rule. Just as having nukes made the use of them untenable, the mere existence of an armed populace serves to guarantee against government tyranny. But try selling that to disarmament sheep.
One of my favorite citations to respond to anti gun people on the suicide issue. At first it gives them a real woody, but when it reaches the HOMICIDE rate with guns their hope for victory kind of goes all flaccid. LOL:
The CDC Injury Center (June 17, 2008, http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/osp/charts.htm) notes that suicide firearm injuries were the second-leading cause of injury deaths in the United States in 2001, surpassed only by motor vehicle accident injuries. Homicide firearm injuries were the fifth-leading cause of injury death in 2001, and unintentional falls and poisonings were number two and three, respectively. In 2003 suicide by firearm and homicide by firearm were the fourth- and fifth-leading causes of injury deaths in the United States. Motor vehicle injuries still remained first, but unintentional poisoning was second and unintentional falls were third. This pattern remained the same in 2004.
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